Tuesday, September 20, 2016

I really love my job. It doesn't even seem like work. My boss is great, and I already feel completely comfortable there.

But working full time is.... well, time-consuming! The blog isn't going away. Eventually I'll be freelancing full time and then I hope to blog much more often. But for a few years, anyway, it's going to be erratic. I've already scattered blog posts through next July, here and there. And there will be more. But now weekends and evenings are precious, precious, precious. So while I still appreciate each and every purchase made through the Amazon portal, the blog is going to be hibernating a bit.

Monday, September 5, 2016

I've accepted a position as a writer at an educational
non-profit.I'm very excited to be able
to combine my writing skills with supporting education, something I
passionately believe in.

And I didn't apply for the job.I didn't even know that it was open.A friend of a friend, someone whom I had met
for coffee for 20 minutes, someone I didn't even know existed prior to that
coffee, passed on my resume to a friend of hers whom she met through a
professional association.In fact,
passed on my resume without even telling me, so when I got a call for a job
interview, I was very confused!When I
was emailing back and forth with HR to set up a job interview, one email
included a link so that I could apply online.I went through the entire job interview without even knowing how I had
gotten there! Finally, at the end of the
interview, my future boss asked me how I knew her friend, and then I figured
out how I had ended up at the interview.

Job hunting is probably very different depending on the
economy of where you live and your level of education.But as a reference point, I live in Lincoln,
Nebraska and I have a doctorate in English.I was changing careers from teaching to writing, mostly using my five
years of freelance writing experience.

Sunday, September 4, 2016

Today we rejoice as we celebrate the canonization of Mother
Teresa of Calcutta.

Her life was truly extraordinary in her love for others,
humility, and her trust in God.God used
her to do incredible work. Her love and her example stretched across continents and touched millions
of lives.

In another way, though, her life was ordinary in the sense
that there are many, many people like her.I speak from my own perspective as a Catholic, although I'm sure there
are also examples from other faiths.But
as a Catholic, I know that her example of complete self-sacrifice for others
and zealous devotion to God is quite common.St. Damien Malachi, for example, spent 10 years of his life caring for
lepers and eventually sacrificed his life, dying from the disease that made him
an outcast.St. Maximillian Kolbe
offered up his life in place of another prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. Even an ordinary priest or nun gives
up wealth, worldly ambitions, the freedom to control his or her own future, and
other good things like marriage and family in order to spend their entire lives
in service to others.There are hundreds
and hundreds of canonized saints, all who share some or all of the traits that
we admire in St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta.And there are even more Saints who are not canonized.Perhaps you know some.

There are many lessons to be drawn from the life of St.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta.But instead I
will end with the question.What would
God do with your life or mine if we gave it to Him completely in love and
trust?